Sirens

This is one I would like to recite to you, but alas ...

Sirens

Sirens scream
Off in the distance.
Are they coming for me?

Trapped

Plotting paths
Seeking me out
Are they coming for me?

Helpless

Blue, red
Visions in my head.
Are they coming for me?

Unyielding

Dancing lights
Relentless in their warning
Are they coming for me?

Numb

Fear attacks
Rises up in my throat,
Are they coming for me?

Fading

Crumbled wreckage
Surrounds my body
Are they coming for me?

Hurry



© Bernard J Rossi

The poetry workshop is under way

The first in a series of very interesting workshops has begun today at http://newauthorworkshop.blogspot.com/ and it just so happens it is a poetry workshop

These workshops are being run jointly between myself and The New Author Website and they will span a wide range areas over the next few months. I encourage all poets to take a look, participate in as many as you can , learn as much as you from the group and from any guest presenters we hope to have from time to time, and enjoy the experience.

Poetry is not something we choose, it chooses us, but it is something we can master..

Good luck and great writing.

BJR

Introspection

To write well we need to know ourselves better than mere mortals know themselves, and then we need to be able take that knowledge and paint a picture with the words it creates.

Introspection

To know myself
what I am capable of
I must look inside my soul,
my mind,
my heart.
What lays in wait below the surface,
beyond the facade?
What rules me,
good, evil,
both?
Which thoughts can I bring to life?
What am I strong enough to suppress?
What truth drives me?
What animal lurks within?
How great can I be?
Will history recall?

© Bernard J Rossi

Pirates 2009

The shoulder parrot
and the wooden leg
are gone
No more dangling earrings
or swashbuckling swords
hanging from belts hoisting
tattered old shorts

Bare chests are still in vogue
however, eye patches
are all but forgotten

The Jolly Roger has gone
There are no tall ships
made of timber
and driven by enormous sails
filled with air,
or terror
depending on your view

Pirates sail little dinghies
and carry big guns

They call for ransoms
rather than scuttle
the ships of the scurvy dogs

The pirates of 2009
are big business,
charging millions
for a single transaction
however,
they never see it that way
preferring to cling to a romantic idea
an excuse
for their behaviour

Not much has changed
but everything has

Calico Jack, Anne Bonny and Mary Read
went down in history
however, who hijacked
the Maersk Alabama?

Jack would not have lost the ship
then fled
shadowed by warships
hiding in a life boat
that looked more
like a death boat
as each hour passed

Imminent danger
snipers on the Bainbridge
all over in seconds

Captain Richard Phillips
survived the hero
though calling himself
‘The by-line’

The pirates
dead
we will forget
There will be
no history books for them

No romantic memory
or campfire story

Easter Sunday
the pirates chose death
over justice

The hunter must become
the hunted
the seas once again
a battlefield
for justice

© Bernard J Rossi

A dust storm of optimism

In the dust of a creative storm
an idea
swirling around with many friends
It was hard to recognize
One minute it was there
the next whirling among the crowd
They all looked the same
yet I knew I had to have the idea
Nothing else would do
I clutched at it blindly
hoping it might find me
as I searched for it
lost in my own crowd
my own dust storm of optimism
a million story tellers deep

In the dust of a creative storm
an idea
If I could separate it from the cloud
it would be the one for me
I did not realise at the time however
that in the idea
lay a story
the story
Everybody was reaching for it
My hands bounced off theirs
theirs off mine
The hands that were competing
could not write the idea the way I would
How could they?
They had not lived the story the way I had

The idea was unique
It had to be lived before a poet could write it
No author had this in his head
It was an idea
on the wind
an idea in a dust storm
and many chose the easy path
looking for a needle in a haystack

I followed the dust storm
and here I am
tired and dirty
with a pocket full of ideas
hoping one of them is the one

© Bernard J Rossi

Poetry workshop

Good morning all and welcome.

In the last few days I have been talking to Brian from The New Author about a number of projects, and one we would like to run in the next week or two is a poetry workshop where we will give you an image and ask you to write a poem about that image. I have done these exercises before and they are very useful in getting the imagination flowing but we would like to do more than that with this one so we will be asking you to concentrate on certain things within your poem as well. Not the creative stuff, but the mechanics of what makes a good poem.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in doing please let either myself or Brian (http://the-new-author.blogspot.com/) know of your interest so we know how many we have. I plan to be available throughout the entire workshop at any time (unless asleep) to help along the way but the extent of that might depend on the numbers.

This exercise will be lots of fun and we will all learn quite a lot from the exercise if past experience is any guide.

Have a nice weekend and I look forward to posting the outline and the aim of the workshop next week.

Drop by and have a look at Brian's site (http://the-new-author.blogspot.com/)while your going if you have not visited it yet, its a great site with tremendous posts on writing.

BJR

Reflections of you

Reflections of you

The joy in your heart brings happiness to mine
The longing you feel I mirror
Any sadness that touches you
Aches within me
These reflections of you,
So wonderful and divine
Two are as one
I move with you in my heart
I survive on the love
That flows between us
When you hurt I hurt,
When you sing I soar
Knowing it will not be forever
That we are apart

Oh how I love these reflections of you


© Bernard J Rossi